The Outpost: (FTI) by Jake Tapper

$27.99 NZD

Category: Military

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE The heartbreaking and inspiring story of one of the deadliest battles of the Afghanistan war, acclaimed by critics as a classic. 'A mind-boggling, all-too-true story of heroism, hubris, failed strategy, and heartbreaking sacrifice' Jon Krakauer, author of Into the Wild At 5:58 AM on October 3rd, 2009, Combat Outpost Keating, located in frighteningly vulnerable terrain in Afghanistan just 14 miles from the Pakistani border, was viciously attacked. Though the 53 soldiers stationed there prevailed against nearly 400 Taliban fighters, their casualties made it the deadliest fight of the war that year. Four months after the battle, a review revealed that there was no reason for the troops at Keating to have been there in the first place. In The Outpost, Jake Tapper gives us the powerful saga of COP Keating, from its establishment to eventual destruction, introducing us to an unforgettable cast of soldiers and their families. This modern classic of military history is an indictment of the management of the war in Afghanistan, and a thrilling tale of true courage in the face of impossible odds. ...Show more

Tomorrow Will Be a Good Day by Captain Tom Moore

$48.00 NZD

Category: Biography

At the height of the pandemic, ninety-nine-year-old WWII veteran Captain Tom Moore began walking laps of his garden to raise e1000 for the NHS. By the time of his 100th birthday, he'd reached e32 million and captured the hearts of the nation. In his official autobiography, announced alongside the creati on of the Captain Tom Foundation, he tells us not only of his long life, serving in Burma in the war and racing motorbikes, but also how an old soldier with a can-do, never-give-up attitude inspired a nation to believe anything is possible by reminding us it is never too late. ...Show more

On Operations with C Sqaudron SAS

$39.99 NZD

Category: Military

World War II from Above - A History in Maps and Satellite Photographs by Julian Thompson

$45.00 NZD

Category: Military

Written by a highly decorated soldier and leading military history expert, this is an innovative, richly detailed and visually stunning overview of history's most destructive conflict.

Black Ops - Secret Military Operations by Nigel West

$45.00 NZD

Category: Military

Black Opsis a thrilling compendium of undercover warfare from around the world. Here you will meet the most hardened soldiers and operatives facing extraordinary dangers deep behind enemy lines. The book features many amazing stories from World War II, such as the assassination of Holocaust architect R einhard Heydrich by Britain's Special Operations Executive, which in 1940 received its mission from Churchill to 'set Europe ablaze' in the battle against Nazi tyranny. Also told are the stories of Stalin's favourite spy; the little-known account of how Japanese military codes were cracked; and Operation Mincemeat, which led to the invasion of Sicily. Written by a leading military intelligence expert, Black Opsranges across a century of remarkable clandestine operations. Starting with Hans Carl Lody, the first German spy during World War I, we also have the plot to assassinate Lenin; the origins of strategic deception; and the Cold War defection of Oleg Gordievsky from the Soviet Union. The book is brought right up to date with the plot to assassinate Osama bin Laden by Navy SEALS in 2011, and the attempted assassination of the Skripals in the UK in 2018, leading to fears that the world is on the brink of a new Cold War. A compelling anthology of spies, soldiers, mercenaries and assassins, Black Opstells the secret history of 20th- and 21st-century warfare. ...Show more

Agent Sonya: Lover, Mother, Soldier, Spy by Ben Macintyre

$40.00 NZD

Category: Military

In the quiet Cotswolds village of Great Rollright in 1944, a thin, and unusually elegant, housewife emerged from her cottage to go on her usual bike ride. A devoted mother-of-three, attentive wife and friendly neighbour, Sonya Burton seemed to epitomise rural British domesticity. However, rather than pe dalling towards the shops with her ration book, Sonya was heading for the Oxfordshire countryside to gather scientific secrets from a nuclear physicist. Secrets that would enable the Soviet Union to build the atomic bomb. Far from an obedient homemaker, Sonya Burton was a dedicated communist, a decorated colonel and a veteran spy who risked her life to keep the Soviet Union in the nuclear arms race. In Mrs Burton, Ben Macintyre reveals the astonishing story behind the most important female spy in history. ...Show more

King's Counsellor - Abdication and War: the Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles Edited by Duff Hart-Davis by Alan Lascelles; Duff Hart-Davis (Editor)

$37.99 NZD

Category: Military

As Assistant Private Secretary to four monarchs, 'Tommy' Lascelles had a ringside seat from which to observe the workings of the royal household and Downing Street during the first half of the 20th century. These fascinating diaries begin with Edward VIII's abdication and end with George VI's death and his daughter Elizabeth's Coronation. In between we see George VI at work and play, a portrait more intimate than any other previously published. This compelling account also includes Princess Margaret's relationship with Peter Townsend, and throws an intriguing new light on the way in which King George VI and Winston Churchill worked together during the Second World War. Lascelles was a fine writer - like most of the best diaries his are a delight to read as well as being invaluable history. ...Show more

Checkpoint Charlie - The Cold War, the Berlin Wall and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Iain MacGregor

$27.99 NZD

Category: Military

'With a gripping narrative and vivid interviews with those on all sides whose lives were directly affected by that grim symbol of the East-West divide that poisoned Europe for almost half a century, [MacGregor] has made an important contribution to the history of our times' Jonathan Dimbleby 'Captures b rilliantly and comprehensively both the danger and exhilaration that I and other reporters, soldiers, and people experienced intersecting with the wall - a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the Europe we have inherited' Jon Snow A powerful, fascinating, and ground-breaking history of Checkpoint Charlie, the legendary and most important military gate on the border of East and West Berlin where the United States and her allies confronted the USSR during the Cold War. As the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches in 2019, Iain MacGregor captures the mistrust, oppression, paranoia, and fear that gripped the city throughout this period. Checkpoint Charlie is about the nerve-wracking confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union that contains never-before-heard interviews with the men who built and dismantled the Wall; lovers who crossed it; relatives and friends who lost family trying to escape over it; German, British, French, and Russian soldiers who guarded its checkpoints; CIA, MI6 and Stasi operatives who oversaw secret operations across its borders; politicians whose ambitions shaped it; journalists who recorded its story; and many more whose living memories contributed to the full story of Checkpoint Charlie. A brilliant work of historical journalism, Checkpoint Charlie is an invaluable record of this period. ...Show more

The Miracle Typist by Leon Silver

$37.99 NZD

Category: Biography

In the tradition of THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ, a heartbreaking true story of love, loss and survival against all odds during the Second World war. Conscripted into the Polish army as Hitler's ground and air forces are bearing down on his country, Jew Tolek Klings vows to return to his wife, Klara, and son, Juliusz. However, when the Luftwaffe's bombs start falling and the Polish cause looks hopelessly lost, Tolek finds himself under fire from his supposed brothers in arms. The Polish army is rife with anti-Semitism and he is relentlessly tormented. As the Germans cross the border, he is faced with a terrible dilemma: flee to protect his family - and risk being shot as a deserter - or ride out the war, hoping rumours of women and children being spared in the concentration camps are true.  What follows is an odyssey that will take Tolek from a Hungarian internment camp, where his ability to type spares him from the frontline, on to Palestine, Beirut, Egypt, Tobruk and Italy. A broken telegram from Klara, ending with the haunting words, 'We trouble', pushes him to the brink.      ...Show more

Battle of Britain - A Day-To-day Chronicle, 10 July-31 October 1940 by Patrick Bishop

$27.99 NZD

Category: Military

From the bestselling author of Fighter Boys and Bomber Boys, this is a magisterial chronicle of a defining episode in British history: the epic struggle of the Royal Air Force with the Luftwaffe. Patrick Bishop's Battle of Britain is a compelling account of Britain's fight for national survival, from t he shock defeat and evacuation from Dunkirk in May/June 1940 to fighter Command's assertion of superiority over the Luftwaffe in mid-September. Battle of Britain takes the reader through that summer day by day, revealing the ongoing battle's impact on flyers and civilians alike. By enhancing his narrative with eye-witness accounts, diary extracts and pilot profiles, Bishop brings the often horrific reality of air combat vividly to life. In Battle of Britain Patrick Bishop has written the definitive account of one of the pivotal moments in twentieth-century British history, and a nation's 'finest hour'. ...Show more

Chastise (The Dambusters Story 1943) by Max Hastings

$27.99 NZD

Category: Military

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A masterly history of the Dambusters raid from bestselling and critically acclaimed Max Hastings. Operation Chastise, the overnight destruction of the Möhne and Eder dams in north-west Germany by the RAF's 617 Squadron, was an epic that has passed into Britain's nation al legend. Max Hastings grew up embracing the story, the classic 1955 movie and the memory of Guy Gibson, the 24-year-old wing-commander who won the VC leading the raid. In the 21st Century, however, Hastings urges that we should review the Dambusters in much more complex shades. The aircrew's heroism was wholly authentic, as was the brilliance of Barnes Wallis, who invented the 'bouncing bombs'. But commanders who promised their young fliers that success could shorten the war fantasised wildly. What Germans call the Möhnekatastrophe imposed on the Nazi war machine temporary disruption, rather than a crippling blow. Hastings vividly describes the evolution of Wallis' bomb, and of the squadron which broke the dams at the cost of devastating losses. But he also portrays in harrowing detail those swept away by the torrents. Some 1,400 civilians perished in the biblical floods that swept through the Möhne valley, more than half of them Russian and Polish women, slave labourers under Hitler. Ironically, Air Marshal Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris gained much of the credit, though he opposed Chastise as a distraction from his city-burning blitz. He also made what the author describes as the operation's biggest mistake - the failure to launch a conventional attack on the Nazis' huge post-raid repair operation, which could have transformed the impact of the dam breaches upon Ruhr industry. Chastise offers a fascinating retake on legend by a master of the art. Hastings sets the dams raid in the big picture of the bomber offensive and of the Second World War, with moving portraits of the young airmen, so many of whom died; of Barnes Wallis; the monstrous Harris; the tragic Guy Gibson, together with superb narrative of the action of one of the most extraordinary episodes in British history. ...Show more

Searching for Charlie: In Pursuit of the Real Charles Upham VC and Bar by Tom Scott

$49.99 NZD

Category: Military

Captain Charles Hazlitt Upham is the only combat soldier ever to win the Victoria Cross twice. His acts of bravery in World War II meant he probably deserved six more.   The mystery of how a reserved, modest, slightly built farm valuer from New Zealand, could be so ferocious and fearless in battle has intrigued and fascinated Tom Scott ever since he read about Charles Upham as a schoolboy. ‘Searching for Charlie’ is his epic quest to unravel the “real” Charles Upham. ...Show more